


Deathless

by BrytteMystere



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 3 year timeskip between the Green Witch and the Blue Cult Arcs, A Choice With No Regrets!Levi, ACWNR era, BEWARE THE METHOD TO BECOME A SHINIGAMI, Blavat is an asshole in this, EVENTUAL Levi/Elizabeth, Even though the first chapter is mostly Kuroshitsuji, F/M, Gen, I'll try to keep this to only 3 chapters, Kuroshitsuji Post Chapter 117, Pre SnK canon, Real!Ciel Phantomhive, Reaper!Lizzy, Slight Emotional Manipulation, Snk/Kuroshitsuji Crossover, So Lizzy is 17-18, Will be mostly Snk for a while, of sorts, okay so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-30 01:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11453016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrytteMystere/pseuds/BrytteMystere
Summary: When she chose to become a Reaper, it was for duty.She risked everything, and now she has to deal with the consequences. Because a mistake has left her stranded in a world she knows nothing of, and she still has a duty to uphold.--The girl came out of nowhere, falling from the sky so suddenly Isabel had no chance to dodge... And Levi is more than determined to figure out who the everloving fuck just fell into Sina's underground city.





	1. Stranded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts), [pearypie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Thy Lips are Warm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10723854) by [Pangeasexual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangeasexual/pseuds/Pangeasexual). 
  * Inspired by [Chante, rossignol, chante, toi qui as le cœur gai](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10901352) by [pearypie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m fully blaming this on Evans3 and pearypie, who unexpectedly got me hooked into this crack pairing. Oh well. Here it goes. Do mind the tags, because... Well, this is a Reaper!Lizzy AU and we now _do_ know how Reapers are made... (even if I haven’t written it quite explicitly) Also, in this verse, I’m making a **three-year timeskip** between the Green Witch Arc and the Blue Cult Arc. So Lizzy is currently 17-18, while the Phantomhive Twins are 16-17. **Post manga chapter 117!**  
>  (This hasn’t passed through my beta, so please point me to any typos)

_Friday, 16 th October 1891_

            Getting back to the Sphere Music Hall was easier than she had predicted it would be. Or maybe she had merely been allowed to go, if only by inaction. Whatever the case, Elizabeth wasn’t about to overthink it. She had, after all, a duty to tend to.

 _‘A duty I’ve been failing for six years already,’_ whispered her traitorous mind, and the lady flinched.

            Ciel hadn’t expressed it, but she felt the weight of her failure nonetheless. After all, she, who of all should have been by his side the most, had remained blissfully ignorant of his constant struggle to stay alive. Giving her all to make happy the brother she had kept quietly grieving for, while her fiancé languished in a dark room.

            Not a thought could be spared towards that brother, whom she had thought her fiancé. Not to the prevalent, echoing pain discovering his lies had left her with, nor the endless questions the whole situation brought within her. Ciel _needed_ her, body and soul. She had neglected him for over half a decade. There was enough to atone for already, without increasing her debt by putting his brother over him again, knowingly or not.

* * *

             The prevalent silence didn’t surprise her, exactly, seeing as her confrontation with Sebastian had barely given Blavat enough time to relocate Ciel. So she quietly made her way back into her fiancé’s room, perfectly willing to wait however long it took.

            On hindsight, it wasn’t all that much.

            “ _Lizzy,_ ” whispered Ciel right by her ear, and as from the first time she heard him in six years, a tangled mess of shame, hopelessness and crushing guilt threatened to drown her. At least this time, though, he sounded stronger. “ _You came back..._ ”

            Turning around at last from her spot by the empty bed, she forced herself to look at him, still far too thin and dry-looking, supporting himself between the wall and his shadowed protector. She had the impression that he was happy, but his condition usually kept him too pained for such an expression to remain for long in his face.

            Each step seemed to make the weight of her latest failure heavier, so not a meter from him she let herself fall to her knees, tears she couldn’t ever hope to keep from falling already marring her cheeks.

            “I never meant to leave you again. I swear, I swear–”

            “ _I believe you, Lizzy,_ ” he said, moving to close the remaining distance between them, embracing her, as if he truly could not find fault in her. The remaining weakness of his body –weakness he _still_ wasn’t used to endure, weakness he _despised_ , she knew well by now– caused him to lean on her for support, willingly or not, and Elizabeth couldn’t help but relish it.

            The weight of his body against hers. The rhythmic beat of his heart. Every inhalation and exhalation. The slight pressure of his arms around her... It all meant he still lived.

_‘As long as you live... As long as you stay alive... Ciel...’_

            “You lost,” declared dryly Blavat then, and she wasn’t sure when he had even entered the room. She wanted him gone again, him and his disrupting presence. At least the other was able enough to remain so quiet she could fully ignore them. “You gave your all against that Collapsar, and yet you failed. Milady, I’m afraid you won’t be able to protect Lord Sirius from him.”

            Every word was expressed neutrally, and yet they all felt like knives readily thrown into her heart. Ciel glared at Blavat, and she knew he was about to defend her, but she couldn’t let him do that.

_‘Oh Ciel... At times like these, I feel like your reproach would hurt less...‘_

            “It’s true. It’s true...”

_‘I know already, what must be done now...’_

            “ _Lizzy..._ ”

            “No. It’s alright, Ciel. I... I already knew... That as I am now, I would be unable to protect you. And I _will_ protect you. No matter what.”

            “Lord Sirius,” said then the previously silent shadowed figure. “It’s time.”

_‘Lord Polaris... Oh. Tonight... Tonight is Sirius, isn’t it?’_

            Ciel definitely had to go, if so. Each donation was precious, and Sirius blood was far too rare... Why, then, had her fiancé not made a single attempt to break their embrace?

            “... Ciel?”

            He held her as tightly as he could, that much she could tell, and guessing he had missed her more than he lent on, she reciprocated his hold as carefully as she could, ever mindful of his condition.

            “ _You don’t have to do it. You... Lizzy, you know that, don’t you?_ ”

            A smiled bloomed then on her lips, as genuine as the ever-present guilt she felt around him. “I know. But I want to do this, Ciel. I want to protect you.”

            “ _He could fail. If things don’t go according to plan..._ ”

            “I’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll become strong enough. Everything will be alright...”

            He broke their embrace at last, his eyes piercing hers as if to spot the slightest hint of hesitation. However, there was none.

_‘I have a duty, and I’ll fulfil it. Because six years ago, I... I swore I would become strong enough to protect Ciel. No matter what.’_

            Thus, relenting at last, he let her go, not without giving her a chaste kiss, their lips touching for just a second before Lord Polaris took him from her.

            Elizabeth was still unsure as to how she should feel about his constant affection. On one hand, he was her fiancé so such things weren’t fully... inappropriate, but on the other...

_‘Don’t think about him. You mustn’t. You **mustn’t**...’_

            “Are you ready then, Milady?”

            ... Blavat truly had an uncanny timing. Regardless of how embarrassing it was to be found lost in her own thoughts, she said nothing, merely nodding and accepting the long dagger he gave her.

(Had she known how short her time left on that world would be, Elizabeth would have certainly spared a moment to write her goodbyes. Or reconsidered the whole deal entirely.)

            Long daggers weren’t her specialty, but she nonetheless moved swiftly enough, completely disregarding the container Blavat had situated to hold the blood that had started to pour freely from her throat.

            Her world turned black soon after.

* * *

             Her first clear sensation was the cold familiarity of her swords on her hands, her fingers already comfortably positioned in the hilt, the scabbards comfortably hidden within her dress’ skirts, their presence unmistakable by her legs. The narrowness of the place she was lying in was a close second.

_‘Wait–’_

            She went from unconscious to fully alert in an instant, realising with a blink that the world seemed to have turned unexpectedly blurry. Everything seemed taken from an Impressionist painting, and no amount of squinting made it clearer. However, her close sight hadn’t seemed all that affected,  because she could clearly see that the dress she was wearing –her swords lying unsheathed by the white skirts–, as similar to the one she had been dressed in as it was, most definitely wasn’t the one she had died in. For one, it wasn’t covered in blood, when she knew for sure hers had been drenched.

            To boot, _her_ dress had had red decorations, matching Ciel’s own preferred colour scheme, but the one she was now dressed in had dark blue ones, lined in silver. And... well... If she wasn’t mistaken, she was lying in a _coffin_ , of all things.

            “Oh, you’ve awakened~!”

            The sudden voice brought her attention towards a shadowed corner of the room to her left, where she could barely make out a dark figure that seemed to merge with its surroundings, the only clear distinction being the long silver hair framing a fair blob that she presumed was a face. Then she blinked, and the figure – _Undertaker_ , as she had already suspected– was now right by her side, chartreuse eyes fixed on hers as he handed over a pair of glasses, black in frame and with some sort of attaching mechanism she couldn’t be bothered to figure out while her mind processed at last that the plan had been successful.

            Undertaker, as Ciel had suspected, had stolen her before her newly Reaper self could reach... Wherever new reapers were meant to go. But more importantly...

_‘I’m a Reaper. Now... Now I’ll have the strength needed to protect Ciel...’_

            Kind hands moving her head brought her attention back to Undertaker, who had at last decided to put her glasses on himself, the frame sitting somewhat strangely but comfortably on her face as the securing clasp was tightened properly, closing securely by her nape, merely an inch or so from her necklace. The glasses didn’t shift at all, once he did so.

            “Mr. Undertaker... Thank you.”

            What had been blurry was now back in sharp clarity, framed by black rectangles she soon didn’t notice at all. And from within it all, the sharpest image was Undertaker’s face, the strange light his eyes seemed to emit, the... familiar aura she couldn’t help but feel comforted by.

            “My dear Lady Elizabeth... It’s a pleasure to meet you again, despite the circumstances. I must say, you remind me an awful lot of–”

            Whatever he meant to say, the crash of a nearby window –in the adjacent room, if she wasn’t mistaken– interrupted him, and Undertaker’s calmness vanished. Elizabeth was swiftly risen from her coffin, able to do little more than hold tightly onto her swords before he took her in his arms and started to run.

* * *

             “Apologies, dearest,” he said, his voice perfectly calm, as if they hadn’t been running through dark, mysterious portals for what surely amounted to hours. Well. _He_ was running. She could do little more than hold tightly to him, swords safely sheathed as he piggy-backed her through openings that appeared on their path with a mere slash of his scythe. “It seems they haven’t taken too kindly to me stealing you...”

            Dangerously close, she could hear the screams of their pursuers. One of the voices sounded strangely familiar, and so even if she realised a fraction of a second too late that she really shouldn’t have, Elizabeth couldn’t help but turn around, the movement making her hold on Undertaker slacken enough that she had barely caught a glance of long red hair before she fully lost her grasp on her saviour’s neck and sides, unfortunately enough to have caught him in the process of opening another pathway.

            As she fell into the darkness, seeing the reapers pass quickly through the already far away doorway, she felt quasi weightless. Elizabeth had never flown, not really, but for a whole second, a moment that seemed to prolong into infinity, she could remember her father rising her up, up and around, hands securely holding her body as she acted like a flying bird, uncle Vincent laughing somewhere in the background as her mother sighed, exasperated, while Ciel asked if he could go next.

            Then the moment had passed, and the absolute darkness around her coalesced into what looked like the ceiling of a massive cave, before she dared look towards the rapidly approaching ground, its pull suddenly overpowering. The poor shadow of a city reached as far as her sight could take, and she had mere instants to wonder where in the world there could have been an underground city before something slammed into her with the speed of Sebastian’s thrown knives, if not harder.

            Everything else was a blur of becoming entangled with someone and falling, falling, _falling_ , hitting the ground so hard her body actually made a dent and she swore she had broken something, a warm weight on her fully taking her breath away.

            For the second time in (to her) short order, Elizabeth’s world faded to black.

* * *

            Again, she felt it hadn’t been too long, but had no real way to tell. Well, except from the apparent _human being_ who was whimpering above her.

            The second she opened her eyes, she met a pained set of tourmalines that stared at her as if Elizabeth’s very existence was offensive. The girl seemed to want to say something, but the fall had affected her more than it had Elizabeth herself, which she considered quite absurd until she remembered that she wasn’t exactly human anymore.

            For something that should have been obvious, taking in what she had had to do to become a Reaper, it seemed the knowledge would take a while to sink in.

            “ISABEL!”

            Elizabeth’s attention was suddenly brought to the man who had just... _landed?_

            What first drew her attention were his eyes, steely silver orbs, a stare intense enough for her to blush, not only because the situation she had found herself in –tangled with an unknown woman in the middle of what could barely pass for a street– was decidedly improper of a Lady, but also because it seemed to pierce right into her very soul, and she could do little more than do her best to remove herself of the situation as swiftly as possible... which turned to be not at all, since she could scarcely figure out _how_ to untangle herself, and the moment she had tried to move the girl above her had cried out in pain loud enough to startle her into stiffness.

            So with a whimper, Elizabeth resigned herself to wait till the silver-eyed man –whose hair was as dark as Sebastian’s, she was willing to bet– and his blue-eyed friend –who had landed a minute or so after him– freed them.

            One thing was for certain, though: she had no idea where she was, apart from _obviously not in her own world_.

 _‘The plan failed,’_ she thought, as her tears fell with no holds barred.

 

            She had failed Ciel again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, not sure if I’ll ever continue this, beyond this point. We shall see. I definitely have to prioritise the three WIPs I already have, lol. But gods, SnK has taken over my life, and Kuroshitsuji’s _Blue Cult Arc_ has pulled me back in.  
>  Well. I definitely have things to write this summer!


	2. Crossing the Threshold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m in a roll! Btw, as far as I’m aware, Levi’s age in canon hasn’t actually been confirmed? I mean, by 850 we know he’s on his early 30s (I guess?) but not his actual, legit age, which I’m unsure will ever be revealed. _Anyway,_ what I mean with this is that for the purposes of this fic, he’ll be born c.820, and thus he’s currently 23, since we take on the _SnK_ side of things 2 years before Wall Maria falls.  
>  Also, I’m keeping _Aniki_ because the English translation really doesn’t make it justice (it’s a Japanese honorific which means “big brother” or can be used to refer to a superior).

_Unknown_

            He had noticed soon enough that the Lady Elizabeth was no longer at his back. And to be honest, even if his plan _had_ included “losing her” for a while within one of the safer worlds, all to finally break the trace that would have allowed the Division to keep finding her had she stayed in her homeworld, _actually_ feeling her fall had been far more distressing that he had been ready to deal with.

_‘She’ll be safe. I’ll go back for her soon enough...’_

            A fraction of a second, enough for their pursuers –so focused on keeping up with him– to miss it, but Undertaker was far too attuned to her newly immortal essence to make the same mistake. It had taken all his self-control to force himself to keep going, regardless of how intense his need to stop and get her back was.

            She had her swords. She had her glasses – _Reaper-made glasses_ , which wouldn’t break easily at all–, and even if she lacked her own Death Scythe (unfortunately there was just so much he had been able to take with her, and _those_ were too well guarded to get one before the alarm was triggered), the world she had fallen in had little to nothing that could prove a serious threat to her... Well, at least there was simply no way it would kill her.

_‘It’ll have to be enough. You have Claudia’s untameable soul, lady Elizabeth. Endure that world for a while. I’ll go back for you...’_

            There were too many things to take care of.

            Undertaker told himself that Elizabeth, radiant light that she was, would not let herself be snuffed out easily... and without her there, maybe saving the Phantomhive twins could become feasible. After all, now she could no longer be used to manipulate either.

            Regardless of his justifications, no reassurance erased the guilt at leaving her behind.

* * *

  _Sina’s Underground City, year 843_

            Had their pursuers not been so close, maybe they would have been gentler with Isabel and the mysterious blonde who seemed to have fallen into her path out of nowhere. However, they _were_ , and as such neither Farlan nor Levi dared to be any less quick than they absolutely could, each taking one girl and dashing away in no more than a minute, not stopping at all till they reached their house.

            By the time they arrived, both Isabel and the blonde girl were unconscious, and after leaving Isabel on her own bed to rest in, Farlan went looking for Levi, certain that he would have to yield his own bed for the girl to rest in, only to be surprised at finding both her and his friend in the latter’s bedroom.

            “Levi–”

            “How’s Isabel?”

            Farlan would have really liked to ask him about the girl –who now that he saw her, was clearly not from the Underground– but Levi seemed to have closed off and as such, Farlan allowed the distraction, even if he knew damn well that his friend was aware of Isabel’s condition, thanks to the quick check-up they had done on both once they had arrived at the house.

            “Well enough. Seems to have bruised her ribs, nothing broken.”

            “Good.”

            “The girl?”

            ... Well. No one had ever said Farlan was the most patient of men. Levi looked at him at last, before the girl on his bed recaptured his attention.

            “She’s dressed like a noble, but those swords...”

            “Swords?”

            “Here,” answered Levi, pointing at what Farlan had initially mistaken by some sort of belt, what with the curved gold fitting perfectly as a frame to the deep blue band that marked her waistline. “This is one hilt, the other is mostly hidden by the ribbon.”

            Levi took both, and Farlan had a second to marvel at how such swords had been hidden, before the question he already pondered became far more pressing than expected.

            “Who’s this girl!?”

            “I don’t know yet,” answered Levi again, voice deceptively calm. He swung the swords fluidly, before holding them both in one hand and sitting by the girl’s side, waiting. “But I’ll find out”.

            He had meant to sound menacing, and in doing so had succeeded. Because if the girl only brought forth in him a strong need to protect her, no one else had to know.

* * *

              _“I was being pursued,”_ had said the girl –Elizabeth Middleford, she called herself– once she awoke, not two hours after Levi had put her on his bed. She had seemed quite surprised to find herself in his bedroom, blushing in a way Levi refused to admit was utterly adorable once he told her as much.

            _“_ Pursued?” wondered him then, cataloguing how she kept doing her best to appear composed, even if she was quite obviously embarrassed, if her ever-present blush and her fidgeting hands were to be trusted.

 _‘I won’t harm you,’_ is what he wanted to express, to that girl who looked like a porcelain doll with eyes that seemed to burn with their very own flame. However, it wasn’t a promise he could make, not until he had ruled her out as a possible threat, and as such he didn’t allow the words to come out.

            She remained silent for a while, as if carefully picking which words to use, playing distractedly with her necklace’s pendant.

            “I... I ran away from home. See, Mr. Levi, I discovered the person I was going to marry wasn’t who I thought he was. His butler brought me back to him by force, but I escaped again. However, I knew he wouldn’t give up, and...” Elizabeth trembled then, a full body shudder, as if she was remembering something unpleasant, her blush receding at last, for she had gone quite pale. Holding tightly to her skirts, she fixed her gaze on her shoe-less feet, and forced herself to continue. “I know I should have considered things more carefully. I was impulsive, yes, but I was desperate, so what could I do? I took my chances, and here I ended up. Because I made a mistake, your friend was harmed, and I know it’s not enough, but the both of you have my deepest apologies.”

            “It’s Levi,” he told her then, face impassive even if the aura she was giving off right then reminded him far too much of... another woman, long time ago. He really didn’t want to ponder too much _what_ could she have done, ruled by her own desperation, for he knew far too well the sort of things that could be done in such a state, to even think of pressuring her into telling him. “Just Levi, I’m not a _Mr_. anything. And Isabel’s well enough, stop beating yourself up. It’s not like you planned to fall on her way, now did you?”

            “No, Levi,” she denied meekly and he truly _wouldn’t_ let himself think too much about why her submissive attitude was so incredibly upsetting to him. For having just met, the girl seemed unusually able to get under his skin.

_‘You don’t look like a submissive person, Elizabeth Middleford. I can see it in your eyes, even now as you avoid meeting mine. You’re a fighter. So why? Why do you look so–’_

            It was far from the first time Levi had cursed his inability to express himself with words, but it certainly didn’t make anything easier. So, aware at least that she probably wouldn’t appreciate his personal brand of humour, he did the next best thing and changed the subject.

            “Your swords?” He guessed, giving them back.

            She took them carefully, as if handling something delicate, sliding them back into their sheaths with the sort of care that spoke of a certain level of emotional attachment.

            “They were a gift. For protection,” she whispered, a soft smile curving her lips.

            “Do you know how to use them?”

 _‘A gift from whom? Protection from what, if you weren’t meant to end up here? Wouldn’t a dagger or two have been a better choice?’_ All these questions remained unvoiced.

            “I _do_ ,” she affirmed, mildly offended, before the door opened and Isabel burst in, Farlan following her with the forlorn face he always made whenever he had tried to keep their friend from doing something rash and failed.

            Isabel, of course, ignored them, focusing entirely on the girl, blue-green meeting chartreuse in what to Levi felt like a small eternity before Isabel cupped Elizabeth’s face and leaving less than a breath between their faces, gushed “You’re so cute!”. As if _that_ were a perfectly valid way to break the ice.

            A confused squeak followed, and Levi had enough mercy to interfere. After all, he couldn’t put past his friend to manage to make Elizabeth faint due to embarrassment alone.

            “ _Isabel_ ,” he said sternly as he pulled her back. “Leave her alone.”

            If he then focused on Elizabeth’s still blushed cheeks to avoid Isabel’s pouty face, no one had to know.

            “So, will she stay?”

            Had Levi not been staring at her as intently he was, he would have missed her eyes narrowing –so quickly returned her face to a peaceful neutrality. Those eyes met his for a whole second before she avoided his gaze to focus on her dress, cheeks blushed again. To be honest, he couldn’t tell what was so interesting about it. The dress had ended up relatively unscathed from her fall, as if the fabric itself was allergic to dirt... which was one of the primary reasons he had allowed her to rest on his bed, but she surely knew more about it than he did, so the focus was unmerited. Besides, he hadn’t taken off anything but her shoes and swords, nor did he plan to.

            “She’s in the room, idiot,” grumbled Isabel, putting out loud what at least two other people in the room had been thinking. “Don’t talk about someone who’s _right here_ as if she couldn’t hear you... By the way, not sure if Aniki told you this, but I’m Isabel Magnolia and the idiot over there is Farlan Church.”

            “Elizabeth Middleford,” answered the _she_ in question, courteously enough to dispel any doubt of her being from the Upside. Levi had the impression that, had she not been sitting on his bed still, she would have done something strange like curtsy.

            Of all three, Levi was the one who had dealt with people from the Upside the most, but Elizabeth seemed to lack any signs of the derision he had always been met with. Whether it was genuine politeness on her part or merely ignorance of the sort of scum that mostly populated the Underground, he couldn’t tell, even if he was willing to bet for the former.

            After all, Elizabeth seemed to radiate her very own light, from her delicate appearance –far skin and doll-like green eyes, framed in golden curls, a dress that seemed to emphasise her waistline– to the kindness she could pour seamlessly into her words, not to mention the sharp intelligence hiding under her pleasant smiles, or her apparent skill with her swords. But if there was something that truly shone through her, it would certainly be her innocence. Her eyes were quietly fierce, like a predator waiting for just the perfect moment, and yet, through the grief he had seen etched in her face as he carried her away... She still had that fragile virtue intact, that much he could tell without doubt.

_‘It won’t last long, here...’_

            It was as miraculously strange as being suddenly hit by a stray ray of sunlight, that innocence of hers.

            “Hey, we’re name-mates!”

            “It does seem so,” giggled Elizabeth then.

            He really hoped, just for once, to be mistaken.

* * *

 

_A week later_

            Elizabeth, whom Farlan had taken to calling _Eliza_ supposedly to avoid confusion, had adapted remarkably well to her new circumstances. Of course, Levi, Farlan and Izzy had taken great pains to keep her from going outside, for as long as they could get away with. Eliza, insisting in helping as much as she could, had taken to teaching Izzy how to read and write, task Levi had tried long ago but had found himself pretty much unable to accomplish. After all, he had always been better at teaching physical stuff rather than theory, and lacked the seemingly endless patience Eliza was gifted with.

            Regardless of first impressions, she and Isabel had clicked right away, and even Levi had officially declared her his friend (even if only via affectionate hair ruffles), mostly by virtue of her taking to his cleanliness standards with the easiness many breathed.

(To be honest, he reminded her of her mother to almost an uncanny level during his cleaning sprees, and if Elizabeth had become extremely good at something in her life, it would be to meet ridiculously high demands. This, of course, she never said.)

            Farlan hadn’t really bonded with Eliza in any significant way, but their exchanges never stranded too far from playful banter on his side and politely sarcastic quips on hers. All in all, things seemed to be going smoothly, so it was no wonder everything took a sudden downturn.

(None of them were especially lucky.)

 

            It happened in the blink of an eye. One second, Eliza had been helping Izzy to clean the stairs, the next she was taken away by a silver-haired man in dark clothes. Izzy didn’t even have time to warn her.

* * *

             By the time they found her, left in a hill almost directly opposite to their house, Eliza lied completely unresponsive by a suitcase she definitely hadn’t had before. Which wouldn’t be much of a problem if she hadn’t happened to attract a particularly disgusting crowd that she didn’t seem particularly moved to fight.

            “I’ll go first, I’ll go first!” Was saying one of the scumbags, and the trio found themselves having pretty revolting flashbacks to a similar scene, two years before. The difference being, of course, that Izzy had actually tried to _escape_ , while Eliza seemed content with crying and silently staring at nothing.

            Levi and Farlan acted quickly, getting Eliza out just when the first bastard had reached for her, which incidentally got him a nicely deep cut from Levi’s sharp knife. Izzy, wanting to help as well, took the suitcase with her, which was heavier than expected and thus made her far slower than she should have been.

            “Izzy!” Screamed Farlan, when upon realising she wasn’t keeping up, turned around and saw her struggling with the suitcase.

            She startled, and they both realised that regardless of Izzy choosing to drop or not the damn thing, their pursuers would reach them before they could escape, so she dragged the suitcase behind her and they both readied for the fight to come. Both were certain they could endure it till Levi made his way back, for as used as he was to always go way beyond them whenever they used the 3dmg, and focused as he would be on snapping Eliza out of whatever had gotten to her, they knew it would take their friend some minutes to realise his friends weren’t just behind him.

            Now Izzy knew she should have considered that the suitcase could be heavier than expected by sight alone, and as such could impair her use of the 3dmg... but the suitcase had come from Eliza’s silver-haired kidnapper, of that she was certain. As such, if that person was, as she suspected, the one who had given her friend her swords, the suitcase had to have useful stuff. Stuff that shouldn’t fall into the hands of scum like the ones who pursued them, no matter what. They were enough of a pain in the ass, didn’t need the extra help.

            And then the small mob got to them.

* * *

             What the fuck had even happened to her, he couldn’t tell nor had he the time to ponder, beyond a quick check that if anything, it hadn’t been physical. Her skin looked as untouched as before, and the only major change was the paleness of her face and the tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

            “Elizabeth,” he started, once he deemed them safe enough, shaking her by those fragile-looking shoulders of hers without much care for her commodity, visceral as it was his need to get that _hollow_ look off her face.

_‘A hollow look for a hollowed woman, who loved me to her very end...’_

            “ _Elizabeth,_ ” he stressed, focusing on her and digging his fingers into her soft skin, doing his best to ground them both into the present, even when that look she now had reminded him far too much of the woman who had birthed him, at her lowest moment. “ _What the fuck is up with you, damn it–_ ”

            “I’m useless,” she croaked at last. And the way she sounded then... Had he heard it compared to how she normally spoke, he would have sworn it was two different people. The effect of such a hollowed, broken voice in addition to her glazed eyes was jarring enough for him to want it all gone, _as soon as humanly possible_. Asides of being _extremely bloody confusing_.

            “What _the actual fuck_ , Middleford?”

            Her eyes focused on his once more, but it was as if the light that usually shone from them had dulled completely, the dark frames of her glasses making it all somehow eerier.

            Her hands cupped his cheeks then, still trembling with the rest of her, fingers clawing at his skin without truly trying to break it. “I only wanted to protect him. _I only wanted to protect him_. What’s this power even worth, if I cannot even do that much? _I failed again, Levi_. I failed, and this time the consequences are too terrible. I tried to help, I did, and I just made everything worse...”

 

(This had been told by a frantic ex-Reaper, mentally counting the seconds before he had to leave least the ones who still looked for her find her through him:

“ _The Earl Phantomhive now believes, due to the corpse of one Elizabeth Ethel Cordelia Middleford being found not long ago at the Funtom’s very own Music Hall, that the being who calls himself his supposedly dead brother is to blame for the tragedy. I’ve tried my best to keep the twins from reaching this extreme, Lady Elizabeth, but none will believe my word, and both think the other is to blame for your untimely demise.”_

And this had been the horrified response of the young lady:

_“B-But my body wasn’t... The other Reapers must... No, no, no, it cannot be, Mr. Undertaker, **please**...”_

_“No Reaper would ever dare to mention such internal affairs to strangers, especially when said strangers are both being manipulated by forces directly opposed to the Division.”_

_“Then I must go back! I was never supposed to remain here, I could fix this–”_

_“Lady Elizabeth... You would be captured before you even reached your homeworld. They’re expecting you. Must I remind you you’re a fugitive Reaper? Best for you to stay here, till your bond to the Division weakens enough. This world will help you with that. Be careful not to go much beyond human standards, however, least you risk calling undue attention back onto you.”_

_“Mr. Undertaker, **please!** ”_

_“I must go now. I’ll try to stop them from destroying each other. And I **will** come back for you, don’t worry.”_

_“But I want to help! There must be something I can do–”_

_“Better you stay here, Lady Elizabeth, where you can no longer be used to further put brother against brother, and there’s still a hope for you to someday return. Because believe me, once the Division gets you there will be no escape unless you fulfil your training... And it never lasts less than a century.”_

He had given her a suitcase then, and spoken some other words, but by that point the girl was already beyond listening.)

 

            “ _Don’t you see?_ I tried to fix things, and instead made them worse. I tried to fulfil my duties, and yet I do nothing but fail, again and again, and–”

            A hand on her head pushed her down, till she found herself looking up towards a man who usually was at her exact eye level, strong fingers digging into her hair till she whimpered, and then there was just those silver eyes of his, piercing right into her soul.

            “ _Elizabeth_ , **focus**. Farlan and Isabel should be here already, that they’re not means they’ve ran into trouble. Now, I don’t know who the fuck is this _him_ you keep babbling about, but Elizabeth... I’m here. I’m here, as are Farlan and Isabel. And they _need us_. **Now**. I need you to  _snap out of this_.”

            She blinked at him, as if the action alone took too much, as if she couldn’t understand why he would ever ask her to help.

            “Why... me? I’m... useless–”

            “ ** _Stop that_**. Izzy and Farlan need us, and you _clearly_ can’t be left alone, so you’re coming with me.” He unsheathed one of her swords, pressing her hand against the hilt, before pulling her forward to take her with him back to their friends. When she didn’t even attempt to hold onto him, he grasped her chin with one hand, glaring into her again. “You want to protect those you care about, don’t you?”

            “Yes.”

            “Do you care at all about Izzy and Farlan?”

            “Yes.”

            “ _Then prove it_. Show me, show yourself, you can protect them. Prove you’re not useless, Middleford. And _make it quick_.”

            She held onto his neck at last then, and he rushed to the rescue.

* * *

             Things would have gone well enough had the idiots not called up more of their kin, but as it is, scumbags were prone to know other scumbags, and many seemed excited at the prospect of fighting Levi’s companions when the man himself wasn’t around to protect them.

            Not that Farlan and Isabel were wimps by any means, but the only one who could deal with odds as skewed as five-to-one was Levi, and like roaches, the scumbags kept multiplying. Soon enough the duet was pressed almost back to back against the suitcase, barely managing to hold them back...

            At first, the twin whirlwinds of absolute chaos wreaking havoc within the mob of scumbags went pretty much undetected, till they reached the front and stood tall, expected saviours keeping the mob back almost effortlessly, mostly with warning slashes and the occasional finger cut.

            It took a while for their particular group of pursuers to realise what exactly was going on, but once they did, a considerable part wised up and ran away, the more stupidly determined ones being motivated to follow the first soon enough, if with rather more injuries. Only once all of them had left, however, did Levi start cleaning his borrowed sword, Elizabeth having let hers fall in favour of hugging Farlan and Izzy as tightly as she could, right up until they begged her to let go.

            A look from Levi was enough to get her to start cleaning her sword too, and she did so as they made their way back home, far more calmly this time, Farlan and Izzy taking turns to carry the suitcase until she got tired of that and took it herself, Levi studiously ignoring their antics, while keeping himself conspicuously close.

            Getting a hug from him would have been nice, especially when she realised her dress –the dress she had meticulously cleaned every day so that she had to borrow Izzy’s clothes as little as possible, seeing as her friend didn’t exactly have an extensive wardrove in the first place– had been torn in places during the fight. But once they were home he ruffled her hair again, as Izzy begged her to open the suitcase –which she agreed to do, in the room they shared–, and she knew he was proud of her.

_‘I helped him to protect our friends. I **can** fulfil my promises, even if it takes time. So... Wait for me, Ciel. Wait for me, –’_

            The suitcase had several of her favourite outfits, as well as a bag of her favourite tea with a small tea set, and a purse with several medicines. Elizabeth let Izzy gush about the fabrics, the tea set, and a box of chocolates that had apparently been hiding underneath, while she allowed herself a moment –just one– to think about the young man she had thought her fiancé for six whole years.

_‘I’ll go back. I’ll go back, I swear. So please... Please, don’t die. Neither of you...’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been writing this till 6 am. I’m dying. What a 4k monstrosity is this. Will edit for typos later.  
> ... Hopefully it lives up to the first chapter? Btw, in case someone wasn’t aware, Levi’s seriously put off by Lizzy’s broken doll mode because the guy was found as a kid by his mother’s corpse, presumably having had to see her die, and I’m headcanoning that Kuchel Ackerman had a mini-mental breakdown once she realised she was dying (due to an STD, don’t tell me the poor woman wasn’t exposed) and literally unable to protect her son any longer.  
> Levi’s so hard to write, for real...


	3. Breakpoint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My pc's connection to the wifi is acting stupid. _Anyway_ , so here we are, I’m still inspired, and hopefully we’ll reach a good ending. I must say, Elizabeth fell into the SnK world around the second week of January 843.  
> (I'm calling this ship Leviza/Ribeth, lol)

_ Sina’s Underground City, year 843 _

_ (Four months later) _

Elizabeth enjoyed her time in the bathtub, even if it had taken a while to get used to only having cold water available, as she pondered over her new life. Not that it had been hard to adapt to, after what she and Isabel had taken to call  _ the Suitcase Accident _ ... once she accepted that, until Mr. Undertaker went back for her, there was nothing she could do about the vows that still tied her to Ciel and his brother. To her family, and her Queen.

Everything previous to crashing against Izzy seemed like a dream, actually. A dream within a dream she had left locked behind a door till further notice. Her reality was full of Izzy’s boundless energy, Farlan’s witty snarking and Levi’s unvoiced intensity. And, well, the Underground, of course. That mockery of a city they all lived in, the horrors of which her housemates still seemed determined to shield her from.

_ ‘Do they think me unprepared to deal with it?’ _ Would she had seriously asked herself, in other time.

However, by that point she knew already that their need to shield her didn’t come from an underestimation of her abilities. After all, Levi had trusted  _ her _ to help protecting Farlan and Izzy. And for what she knew of him, he wasn’t one to refrain himself from throwing any necessary punches, verbal or otherwise.

She could still remember quite clearly, that first week after the accident, when Levi had caught onto her trying to seem shorter than him –not that she towered over him or anything, she would swear their height difference was at the most two inches–, since she had realised soon enough that his height was a... sensitive subject, not that she wasn’t used to catering to such sensibilities. So she had kept her knees slightly flexed as much as she could, seeing as her flat shoes weren’t really enough, for unlike... a certain someone, Levi had never worn heels, nor did he seem to ever want to do so.

Farlan, showing himself to be quite unhelpful, had taken to giggling under his breath –somehow still loud enough for them all to hear him– whenever he saw them both in the same room, which had only irritated Levi more. So she really should have foreseen that her usually impassive friend would do something about it.  _ Hint: _ she didn’t. So it was quite the surprise when, after one of her daily lessons with Izzy, she found herself being whisked away over the raven’s shoulder, in a definitely improper way to carry a lady, not that she actually bothered to tell him as much.

* * *

_ “I’m going to teach you to fight,” _ he had said then, silver eyes piercing into her as his hands on her shoulders kept her fully straight, almost  _ daring her _ to try that trick again.

_ “B-But I already–” _

_ “ _ **_I’m going to teach you how to fight_ ** _ , Middleford. And maybe then you’ll know enough to get why crouching around me is beyond stupid.” _

There had been no swords. Nothing but their bodies, and she had done her best to keep up even as her skirts hampered her movements, asides from giving him easy ways to destabilize her defences. No more than ten minutes, tops, had passed when he had her pressed against the thankfully impolite floor of their living room, arms painfully twisted at her back and his knee firmly planted on her backbone. Her corset, looser than she was used to wearing due to having to put it on by herself, still made every breath a chore, so it took her several minutes to move even when he let her go.

_ “I’m... sorry, Levi,” _ she had told him once she had managed to sit, not truly daring to look at him, knowing he was still quite irritated with her.

_ “Just stop doing that. And do stop wearing that shit, it’ll only give you trouble.” _

__ _ “U-Uh!?” _ He had kneeled by her side, poking into her side hard enough for her to feel it through the layers of her corset and dress combined. She blushed, hugging herself as if he would rip her dress away right then, for his disdain towards her clothes had brought her back to a blurry memory of someone doing just that.  _ “B-But I must... I must look cute, no matter what, and...” _

Another poke, this time right between her eyes, brushing the bridge of her glasses, cut her short. Levi was looking at her in a way that would have seemed absolutely deadpan to anyone who hadn’t gotten the minimum hang on his micro expressions. To her, who  _ had _ , he looked both amused and exasperated.

_ “You’re always cute, brat.” _

He ruffled her hair, messing her hairdo again, but she didn’t complain. It was one of the only outright signs of affection he allowed himself to show, and she had come to appreciate the ruffles. She would rather have to fix her hair a thousand times, as long as she got to see the hint of a smile in his lips.

_ “But seriously,” _ he said after an instant, fingers now tightening on her head, bringing her close enough for his warm, minty breath to caress her face.  _ “Don’t wear that shit to our training till you manage to learn everything without it first. I’ll get you some proper clothes too. It’s time you learn how to use the 3dmg.” _

* * *

 

All in all training with Levi had proved more than enough challenge, and though it took her around three months, she had managed to replicate all the moves he had taught her with her preferred clothes, even if some of those had to be modified a bit before she could do so.

(She had mentally thanked Mr. Undertaker for included a small sewing kit in the suitcase he had readied for her, as well as Miss Nina for humouring her so long ago, when she had taken sewing as one of her many hobbies.)

She had also taken quite easily to the 3dmg, after some moderately disastrous first attempts, so Elizabeth could state with a modicum of certainty that her friend’s protectiveness did not come from attempts at babying her.

_ ‘With Levi’s merciless during our training sessions, that would be pretty absurd anyway. So, why? What were they trying to keep me from? What could the Underground City have that proved worse than I’ve already seen?’ _

Wishing to get answers, she waited till the perfect moment –Farlan and Levi gone to do who knew what, Izzy falling asleep after a particularly nasty set of syntax exercises– to sneak away in her most unnoteworthy clothes, the trusty dagger Levi had painstakingly trained her with sheathed within a secret pocket in her right boot, and went off to explore.

(She would latter wish she hadn’t bothered.)

* * *

 

Izzy sensed quite soon that there was something wrong, even if it took her a while to realise what might had brought her from her slumber to give her such an impression. Of course, the muffled cries coming from the room she shared with Eliza were telling enough once the blur of sleep let her think clearly.

Rising quickly enough to instantly regret it even as she stumbled her way into the room, the sight of her friend wiping her dagger clean with a bloodstained hankie was enough to fully dispel any remaining sleepiness in her.

“Eliza? Eliza! What happ–?”

Her friend let the dagger fall, moving in that way she sometimes did when Izzy lost track of her for a fraction of a second before being pulled into a bear hug, so fast and graceful no one had any hope to evade her.

And even if after a while her lungs started begging for air far too insistently, Izzy hugged her back, paying no mind to the way Eliza’s fingers dug into her back, surely to leave bruises, for she knew her golden haired friend meant no harm. She just... wasn’t fully aware of her strength, at times, especially when in emotional turmoil. Besides, Izzy would always prefer being slightly squished to death than having Eliza revert to her best statue impression. With Levi and Farlan on a mission to get them new 3dmg, not to return for at least another day, she wasn’t sure she could have snapped her friend from such an ordeal.

“The world is a cruel, cruel place, Izzy,” said Eliza at long last, her hold loosening enough for Izzy to breath naturally again.

Cupping her friend’s face between her palms, blue-green eyes met chartreuse, and Izzy realised that despite their efforts, Eliza had to have been exposed, somehow, to the darkest and most rotten parts of the Underground. Looking back at the dagger Aniki had gifted Eliza once she had become good enough at hand-to-hand combat for his liking, and to the  _ bloodied hankie _ she had been cleaning it with, many questions were about to pour from her lips, till the already tender points at her back reminded her of Eliza’s despair, moment at which she decided to merely pull her friend into her bed and cuddle for a few hours.

The morning after, once they had each taken a bath and eaten what meagre breakfast they could with the amounts of food they had left, Izzy begged Eliza to tell her stories, smiling contentedly when her friend’s dejected aura perked up a bit as she told her all about an adventurous child on her way through a crazy land called  _ Wonderland _ .

_ ‘So what if we couldn’t keep her innocence intact? Eliza’s strong enough to pull through. And... yes, we’ll make sure that no matter what, you never stop having reasons to smile, Lady Sunshine...’ _

* * *

 

When Levi and Farlan returned, new 3dmg and some food in tow, it didn’t take them too long to notice that something had changed in Elizabeth. Maybe it was the way she would look outside their window at times, the bitter expression of those who had realised there was a particular sort of cruelty only humans could achieve easily recognisable in her face, or the way her happiness seemed too forced sometimes, but none of them outright stated anything about it, at least not with words.

Farlan engaged Eliza in word games far more frequently than usual, their easy banter acquiring its very own, unique rhythms as she occasionally indulged him in short stories about her hometown –and none of them said anything, either, as those descriptions got more and more vague each week– and life in the Upside in general.

Levi, meanwhile, expressed himself better with actions, upping his training’s difficulty levels till his bouts with Eliza were more akin to a well-known dance than the mostly one-sided ass-kicking they had been, always there for an impromptu spar session whenever the tension in her shoulders was too much, or when she simply wished to feel the warmth that only physical exertion could grant.

Neither Farlan nor Izzy had ever known anyone to be such a perfect match for Levi, who had always ultimately brought any and all opponents to the dust no matter how many times he trained them, but either on their spar sessions or their verbal ones –where Levi would try to fluster her with his crudest language while she politely rebuked each attempt, if still blushing from time to time–, Eliza seemed uncannily able to keep up. So they watched their friends in their deadly dances, and cherished the happiness they all had found.

 

By the end of her first year in the Underground City, Elizabeth had become far more cynical towards humanity in general, at the same time she clung more and more to the small circle of friends she had managed to make.

If a traitorous part of her whispered nightly that staying with them to the end wouldn’t be bad at all, she didn’t dare to acknowledge it. Especially when it came to the somewhat familiar warm feelings being around Levi or merely thinking about him brought her...

* * *

 

_ Sina’s Underground City, year 844 _

He watched her, hidden, knowing he shouldn’t –couldn’t– remain for much longer, and yet unable to keep himself from drinking in her happiness.

Undertaker had been somewhat afraid, that once the protective spell he had gotten woven into her dress vanished –a spell made in such a way that those she first encountered in a world not her own would feel the instinctive need to protect her–, her benefactor’s good will would vanish as well, but he really shouldn’t have worried.

Elizabeth had managed to create strong connections with them, on her own, and he couldn’t tell if he felt more relieved or saddened.

To keep coming to observe her was dangerous, and he had decided that  _ this _ , this one time, would be the last one till she could go back home, but even as seeing her happy and safe with those three friends of hers... it was a bit painful, not to be needed.

He had chastised himself often at his need to keep her close, when due to her new state of being the very thing they would no longer ran out of would be  _ time _ , but still the feeling wouldn’t relent. That she had been the one who had come closest to him since Claudia did not help matters. Nostalgia –of the family he should have had but had been kept from– threatened to make him do something rash like go to her again, talk to her one last time...

But he wouldn’t do that. His presence would only remind her of what she had had to leave behind, of the anguishing consequences of her impulsive actions, and as such, hurt her.

So he cherished her happiness for another instant before leaving, not a single proof of his presence left behind.

* * *

 

Of all those who worked with Levi, Farlan and Isabel, not many had had any sort of contact with the chartreuse-eyed blonde who dressed like a noble and yet somehow managed to spar with  _ Levi _ on equal grounds. She was a quiet sort, after all. Kept to herself and their house for the most part, even if she never had shown anything but polite neutrality towards any of them.

Still, everyone knew that she contributed in her own ways to their collective wellbeing –usually by stitching back clothes, although she  _ had _ proved herself able to stich one or two wounds that were far too severe to wait till enough money had been pooled to get the poor fool to a hospital–, and more importantly, she was dear to Levi and his closest friends.

Elizabeth Middleford was the one who insisted in using cutlery even if all they had to eat were some loads of bread, the one who dressed up like a doll to have little tea drinking sessions with Levi, and he one who on especial occasions told stories to the younger ones.

Her ability with the 3dmg and those swords of hers weren’t to be dismissed either, and soon everyone had gotten used to seeing her by Levi’s side with Isabel and Farlan... So the only one surprised by her presence was the old man who had apparently searched for them to  _ ask for their services _ .

 

If the old man had instantly made her uneasy, with Levi’s instant refusal to his proposal pleasing her far more than she cared to admit, realising that he was taking Yam –one of the men who worked with them, whose leg had been getting worse and worse by the day– away as a hostage situation barely disguised as a goodwill act only made her uneasiness grow.

Said old man referring to Levi with far too much familiarity for not having actually met him before cemented the ominousness of the whole situation. Now, with the implicit threat in the man’s words, as they all saw Yam get taken away –not that  _ he _ seemed aware of the situation–, it didn’t surprise her when Levi at last relented, agreeing to listening to whatever the man had to say.

This, however, didn’t make things easier to deal with.

Elizabeth felt brought into a familiarly revolting dynamic, as if she had been used to the old man’s personal brand of coercion before, as much as she remained unwilling to fully remember it. The veiled threats, the barbed conversations... yes, it all was familiar. And she hated the old man then and there, uncaring of his motives or his promised rewards. For as hard as life in the Underground could be –having to live with realities she would go great lengths to ignore for the shake of her own sanity–, it had always remained brutally honest in a way that had been refreshingly new. A way she had cherished.

Being brought back into mind games where the slightest slip of the tongue could doom her was a truly hard pill to swallow.

“Alright,” had said Levi, his voice withholding the anger he felt, even if only Farlan, Izzy and Eliza were aware of it.

_ ‘Yes, I hate this man,’ _ she thought as they went upstairs for the very first time since her fall. And she wasn’t alone in that sentiment.

* * *

 

The sunlight was blinding, after so long without it in such a way, and yet it didn’t take them long to see their “contractor”. Who, in what to Elizabeth was a blatant display of rudeness, didn’t bother to get out of his carriage or the shadows that hid him within, looking down at them all even as he professed how they should  _ trust him _ . As if such a thing could be ever conceived after his previous power display. After he had taken  _ one of theirs _ to force them into meeting him.

_ “Once you fulfil your mission, not only will you get an astounding amount of money,” _ was saying the man they all instinctually felt nothing but contempt towards.  _ “But also... a life on the surface.” _

She wished to tell him to refrain from expressing false promises –regardless of how naïve she had once been, there was no way such a man could ever fulfil such a promise when he clearly meant them to do something unsavoury–, but... Farlan and Isabel gasped, bringing to mind a starving man being offered a cold glass of water, and she knew... they would try. The offer was too good to be true, and yet they would try to get it.

Whether due to the possibility of a life on the surface, for Yam’s wellbeing, or the  _ objective’s _ own intrusion in their lives... ( _ if _ the noble could be trusted, which Elizabeth wasn’t betting on) They would try to fulfil the man’s request.

_ “Behave as always,” _ decided Levi not long after.  _ “But if it’s as baldy said... Our job will start.” _

Elizabeth, hair tightly kept in a bun as she followed them easily in her more dexterous outfit –the 3dmg the man had provided feeling heavier than it was by her hips–, kept quiet.

 

(Had Levi had  _ an inkling _ of how everything would end up, surely, he would have rejected the whole affair point blank.)

* * *

 

Elizabeth did her utmost to avoid thinking on what her mother would say, if she could see her at that very moment. They were the distraction, so that their allies could steal what they all needed, and to be honest, as much as a part of her kept badgering on about all the ways her current lifestyle was unladylike, Levi’s influence had managed to get her through such dilemmas.

She could bear not being ladylike, as long as she could help him. Levi, Farlan and Isabel. They were her priorities, so she dashed with them through the city, even when it got them the attention of those whom Isabel initially identified as the  _ Military Police _ .

However, soon enough their ability with the 3dmg seemed to reveal the as something else.

“Those movements–” started Farlan, and never had Elizabeth heard him so surprised. “They’re not from the Military Police!”

“Ahhh, there’s no doubt. It’s  _ them _ . The emblem of the Wings of Freedom.  _ They’re the Survey Corps!” _

And Elizabeth really wanted to ask why the part of the military who went  _ outside _ the walls would be following some thieves in Sina’s underground city, but in a sudden flash she realised...

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Asked Levi, quite smugly.

“Of course,” replied Isabel.

“ _ Work _ , right?” finished Farlan.

_ ‘Please, no,’ _ thought Elizabeth.

But Farlan and Isabel each dashed to opposite sides, two of their four green-cloaked pursuers leaving formation to follow them, and on she and Levi went, to get rid of the last two.

“Well then,” whispered Levi, barely loud enough for her to hear. “Let them show us the abilities of the Survey Corps...”

Their separation was as instantaneous as their friends’ had been, both delving into the sort of acrobatics only they had been able to endure, and Elizabeth let herself be lost for an instant in the thrill it always gave her.

By the time she realised the remaining two had gone together after Levi (and  _ oh _ , but did she berate herself for not considering that he would be their focus), her friends lied on their knees, chains holding their wrists, already stripped from their 3dmg.

_ ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid!’ _

* * *

 

She landed by Levi’s side, a growl resonating on her throat as she bared her lips, her swords almost instantly meeting those of the soldier closest to Levi, who attacked her hard enough for her whole arm to shake and still she held her ground, throwing her second sword beyond Farlan’s head and almost – _ just  _ **_almost_ ** _ , damn it _ – piercing the green-cloaked soldier on that end.

Her first opponent pushed further against her, and she couldn’t keep a pained gasp from leaving her lips, when a sudden movement by her back gave her barely enough time to pull her second sword back in time to block the sword of the man she had initially dismissed as the farthest one from her friends.

The shock of the hit was sudden enough to lower her guard, enough for her to see the kick coming from the first attacker without being able to do much about it, beyond grunting when a strong knee collided with her side, just beneath her ribs.

Her right sword slipped, and her attacker’s was thus able to make a clean slice along her arm, but she would not give up–

_ “ _ **_Eliza!_ ** _ ” _

It was an order, absolute, and before she was even aware she had done so, she had slipped to her knees, swords falling to her sides, head bowed as she realised a painful truth, locked within Levi’s exclamation.

They had been caught, easy and simple. There were more of  _ them _ than her, and regardless of how much she could endure –regardless of how much they couldn’t truly harm her, in the end... Farlan and Izzy were there too.  _ They _ were pretty susceptible to harm, and she couldn’t ensure their safety.

She trusted Levi enough to know he wouldn’t have surrendered without a good reason, and even if her anger had initially blinded her, there was little she could do.

_ ‘Surrender,’ _ had ordered Levi.  _ ‘It’s too dangerous’ _ had been implied.

So she did, unmoved as they took her weapons away, as they forced her to kneel and put her in chains by Levi’s left.

Her wounded arm –mostly healed in the minute it had taken them to take away her 3dmg, and thus taken as having been no more than a superficial wound in the first place– still bled enough to tarnish her white dress, or what remained of it since she modified it to be wearable with the 3dmg. She felt Levi’s sidelong glance, and silently conveyed she was alright with a twinge of her lips.

He didn’t look all that convinced, and she could almost  _ feel _ the concern oozing from Isabel and Farlan, but they quickly regained their composure and put their best impression of statues as the last man who had attacked her –a blonde whom if she had to guess, was none other than the  _ Erwin Smith _ they had been told about– questioned them, at least till he seemed to realise none of them would answer.

_ The target _ , as she viciously allowed herself to call him, if only mentally, approached Levi, and with each step she tensed further.

“You are the leader, right?”

He sounded so detached, and yet his mere presence gave her the creeps. That man... if that man tried to hurt Levi...

“Have you received training from the Military Police?”

Levi at last straightened, glaring at the target in such a way that it would have others running for their lives. And then that other beast –the one who had slashed her arm– grabbed Levi by the hair, pulling him almost straight from the ground, growling like a dog before pushing his face  _ down _ .

Farlan and Isabel gasped, as did Elizabeth, and the latter vaguely heard Izzy calling the monster in question   _ “Bastard.” _

Elizabeth wasn’t sure. Her focus had narrowed to the hand pushing Levi against the puddle in front of him, and she could almost  _ feel _ her eyes lightning up, her teeth sharpening as she readied for–

 

_ “... Be careful not to go much beyond human standards, however, least you risk calling undue attention back onto you.” _

 

Mr. Undertaker’s words cut into her like a hot knife through butter, and she barely kept herself from breaking her chains, feeling nonetheless the blood of her roughened wrists flowing down her hands, and a deathly growl she barely recognised as hers still coming unbridled from her hoarsening throat.

If she broke her chains now... If she tore that  _ bastard’s _ head from his shoulders... If she killed each every single one of their attackers... What? What would happen to them?

The probability of no one seeing her do such a thing was abysmally minimal, for there were  _ always _ watching eyes in the underground. And others would be sent, more and more and  _ more _ . She would have only escalated the situation to a level she couldn’t take back. Even were she not to care at all about the situation she could find herself in, she would never dismiss the sort of consequences that could befall her friends.

Her friends... Would they even accept her, where she to show how utterly non-human she could be? Elizabeth was well aware of how  _ unordinary _ she had marked herself as, if remaining in an acceptable range thanks to Levi’s own astounding abilities. But if she showed her true colours... If she did...

The bastard –an ashen blonde with a stupid goatee and  _ oh, but had Levi’s crass vocabulary influenced hers, if only mentally _ – gave her a cautious side look, if not truly worried, maybe because he realised she  _ couldn’t do anything _ . The idea of him breaking Levi’s neck before she could stop him, with the imagined revulsion from the only three people she could count on in the world she was stranded in, were more than enough to rein her in, if only barely.

All in all, less than half a minute had passed, and Levi had managed to twist his head mostly out of the dirty puddle water he had been shoved into, glare absolutely murderous, having as much of an effect of the man in question as my growl had. This is, none at all.

Levi was literally trembling with rage, and she decided that if he made the slightest sign of permission, she would kill and deal with the consequences later.

“I’ll ask you again,” said the target, reminding her of his existence in the process and adding himself to her  _ to murder _ list. “Who taught you to use the gear?”

“No one taught us!” Exclaimed at last Farlan, while Isabel and Elizabeth both remained steadfast in their attempts to kill the man who  _ still _ had Levi pinned to the puddle. “We learned on our own!”

Levi had bared his teeth, seething, and Elizabeth could do little more than beg him,  _ beg him _ , as if thinking it hard enough would be enough to convey her feelings, for permission to attack.

“On your own?” Wondered the target then. “It’s hard to believe,” he continued, and his tone was so utterly dismissive –as if Farlan was an unruly child trying to lie about who ate the last cookie– that Elizabeth contented herself with imagining how Levi could – _ would _ – kill him. And it didn’t feel  _ enough _ .

“We learnt it so we could get out of this landfill!” Rebutted Farlan.

“Those who see the sunlight every day wouldn’t understand,” snapped then Isabel. “Stop treating us like trash just because we aren’t soldiers!”

And maybe the target believed them, because a look from him made the bastard in question stop pinning Levi into the puddle, even if he didn’t actually let go of him. The target then stepped into the puddle himself, tarnishing those white pants of his in a display Elizabeth did not care to interpret, already having decided that the man in question would die.

“My name is Erwin Smith,” said the target at last, and a fool could have thought of his tone as kind. “And yours?”

“Levi,” answered the same after a short silence.

“Levi...” repeated the target – _ Smith _ –, deliberately ignoring or too oblivious to notice their collective murderous intent. “Let’s make a deal.”

_ “A deal?” _ Questioned Levi then, and Elizabeth felt a thrill snap through her upon realising that, regardless of what Smith offered, Levi had taken his decision. And that, whether the target knew it or not, would be his  ultimate demise.

_ ‘Levi chooses your death, Smith. Do get ready...’ _

“I won’t blame you for what you did. In exchange, I want you to help.  _ Join the Survey Corps _ .”

The offer was ludicrous.

_ ‘Has Smith lost his mind?’ _

“An if I refuse?”

“I’ll give you up to the Military Police. Taking into account everything you did, they won’t be kind to you or your partners,” he said, rising at least and walking away a few steps, before turning again. “Choose whichever you prefer.”

_ ‘Idiot,’ _ she wanted to say.  _ ‘The choice has already been made. We’ll get your head on a pike. If you invite wolves into your home... Well, you should expect consequences, wouldn’t you?’ _

“Fine,” said Levi at least, shaking the dirty pond water off with a sharp head movement, before glaring again at Smith. “I’ll join the Survey Corps.”

_ ‘You’ll die soon, nasty, nasty Mr. Smith...’ _

  
(Regardless of what happened after, Elizabeth never stopped hating the man.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The _irony_ of certain parts was almost too much, lol. And this baby is 5k words. Which again, I’ve stayed till way too late writing. It’s currently 4am. I’ll edit later for typos.  
>  And... Em... Please, review?


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